Disinfection scale

Table 3. Approximate Disinfection Scale for All Organisms in Order of Increasing Resistance (Response to Commercial Disinfectants)...

The first application of chlorine in potable water was introduced in the 1830s for taste and odor control, at that time diseases were thought to be spread by odors. It was not until the 1890s and the advent of the germ theory of disease that the importance of disinfection in potable water was understood. Chlorination was first introduced on a practical scale in 1908 and then became a common practice. 

The US EPA explored UV light for small scale water treatment plants and found it compared unfavorably with chlorine due to 1) higher costs, 2) lower reliability, and 3) lack of a residual disinfectant. 

On a smaller scale, the largest producer of iodine is Japan where it is extracted from. seaweed containing more than 0.05 parts per million. The most important industrial iodine compound is silver iodide used with silver bromide in photography. Iodine is important in medicine for treating thyroid problems by adding it to table salt. It is used directly as a disinfectant, and a component of d vs. Crystalline silver iodide is used for cloud seeding. 

When the water is too alkaline, swimmers experience similar physical discomfort—burning eyes and nose and itchy, dry skin. The effect on the pool, however, is different. When water is alkaline, calcium dissolved in the pool water can precipitate (fall) out of solution. A precipitate is a solid that forms from a solution due to a chemical reaction. This solid creates unsightly scales on the sides of the pool. Like water that is too acidic, alkaline water also affects the efficiency of the chlorine. More chlorine needs to be added to alkaline water to effectively disinfect the pool. Over time, a swimming pool that is not kept at a neutral pH can become very expensive to maintain. 

Sufficiently cheap UV photodiodes are available but they are not visible-blind. Filters have to be used, but they raise the costs. Sufficiently selective photodiodes are also available but they are too expensive, mainly due to their only recently established technology. The sensor costs have been a limiting factor in two application fields of UV sensors, namely water disinfection and combustion monitoring, on the industrial as well as on the household scale. 

In communal-scale water disinfection plants, UV monitoring systems are generally included. However, for household-scale systems they are not available or only as an optional accessory. 

The electrochemical generator is designed for both small (0.136-4.5 kg C102/day) and larger scale (0.5-27 kg/h range and more) chlorine dioxide production rates. The chlorine dioxide solution from this system is suitable for sanitizing and disinfection applications as well as waste water treatment. 

Salicylic acid is manufactured on a large scale. In the dye industry it serves for the production of valuable azo-dyes which exhibit great fastness. To some extent these dyes are applied to mordanted fibres. In addition, the acid and its derivatives are widely used in pharmacy. Being a phenolcarboxylic acid it has a powerful disinfecting action (preservative). It has further proved itself an important antirheumatic and an analgetic. The derivative in which the phenolic hydroxyl group is acetylated (aspirin) has become especially popular. The first medicament of the series was the phenyl ester of salicylic acid, salol, which is produced as a by-product in the technical process. The preparation of salicylaldehyde has been described above (p. 235). 

Water conditions, such as temperature, alkalinity, iron levels, and manganese concentrations are all factors that can potentially affect the generation of mixed oxidants and the overall performance of the disinfection process. Some adjustment of the concentration of the mixed oxidant solution may be necessary to prevent scaling in hard-water areas. 

Hydrogen peroxide is a large-scale manufactured chemical compound due to its application as a disinfectant and in bleaching, although it also has an important use as a reactant in many minor-scale fine-chemical productions. 

Considerable information of a general nature is available for uncontaminated water subject to the production of disinfection byproducts. The mutagens produced by drinking water chlorination appear to be numerous, but they exist either at low levels or are of low potency. For both the unresolved mixtures and for the few mutagenic compounds thus far identified, activity is readily reduced or destroyed by treatment with alkali or 4-nitrothiophenol and may be removed by GAC treatment. From water sources subject both to mutagen formation via disinfection and to periodic contamination by toxic chemicals, experimental full-scale GAC treatment systems have provided mutagen-free water. 

Small-scale water disinfecting units, such as the one shown here, hold great value in regions of the world where potable water is scarce. 

Huck P M, Anderson W B, Savage E, von Borstel R C, Daignult S A, Rector D W, Irvine G A, Williams D T (1987) Pilot Scale evaluation of ozone and other drinking water disinfectants using mutagenicity testing, 8th Ozone world congress, Zurich, Switzerland, September, C29-C54. 

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